The Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) wants the youth development tournament being staged in the northern parishes of St Ann and Trelawny to become a staple on the local calendar.

The tournament, which features cricketers who are 17 years old and under, comprises three teams from Jamaica — Black, Green and Gold — and as many from the United States.

The US-based teams are American Youth Cricket Academy (AYCA) Falcons, Master Strokes Cricket America (MSCA) Blazers, and North Jersey Youth Cricket Academy (NJYCA) Qasars.

The event runs December 22-29, with days off on Christmas Day and Boxing Day. After round-robin action with each team facing the other once, there will be a schedule of positional games to determine winners, runners-up and remaining spots.

Matches are being held at Port Rhoades Sports Club and Reynolds (Jamaica Bauxite Mining) Cricket Ground in St Ann and the Trelawny Multipurpose Stadium.

The local teams have been dominating, with Jamaica Black (12 points) leading the table ahead of Jamaica Gold (nine), Jamaica Green (six). NJYCA Qasars also have six points, while AYCA Falcons (one) and MSCA Blazers (zero) round out the rest of the standing.

O’neil Cruickshank, the JCA’s cricket operations and development manager, says the future of the tournament looks bright based on the interest from various academies that are not featuring in this inaugural event.

“Though it’s a development tournament — with largely Under-16s and a few 17-year-olds — and there’s nothing to be gained by winning it, I’m sure all the units are trying to win. And we don’t want [the tournament] to be a one-off, though we don’t know yet about the [future schedule] because that is going to be a challenge, with our youngsters at school, and they have national competitions,” he told the Jamaica Observer.

“We have been getting interest from academies, people asking how we could make arrangements. But what I’m seeing is that Jamaica youth versus US youth is going to be a thing of the future,” Cruickshank said.

He added: “This is not the first trip that US academies have made to Jamaica… but this is the first time we are having a tournament. And with six teams we’ll have all the teams playing each other at least once.”

Significantly influenced by cricket-loving Asian emigrants, the sport is rapidly growing in the United States.

The JCA’s cricket operations boss said plans for the current tournament emerged from reciprocal objectives.

“In the US their cricket is obviously mushrooming, especially in recent times, and they co-hosted the 2024 Twenty20 World Cup and their team is also climbing up the [global] rankings. In the US they play a lot on matting wickets [artificial pitches] and they want to expose their youngsters to turf pitches and also competition from structured areas like the Caribbean.

“In Jamaica we have looked at lack of exposure for our youngsters. These youngsters will play well against each other but once they play against others somehow their cricket changes. This [ongoing tournament] gives them exposure, to play against people from other areas and cultures. Additionally, it comes at a good time for us because we are in the preparation phase of our national youths teams, particularly our Under-15 team,” Cruickshank explained.

He said parish youth teams from the southern belt of Jamaica will get exposure when another US-based academy, led by former Jamaica Under-15 cricket coach Philip Service, visits from December 27, 2024 to January 2, 2025.

He said the back end of that visit will be highlighted by contests between a squad of the best of the Under-15 players from Jamaican teams and the Service-coached outfit.

“It’s a full programme for our youth development initiative and we are looking forward to seeing what our youngsters do,” he said.

— Sanjay Myers